Space Marine and Dragonwrangler Bar & Grill

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jallenecs

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The whole "ghosts should only be horror" doesn't sit well with me. I like the idea of the various spirits from history hanging out and dishing the dirt on people. Or whining that the current owners of their ancestral homes have horrid tastes. The kind of small, humanizing moments so blatantly missing from a lot of stories about ghosts.

Have you read Waiting For the Galactic Bus and The Snake Oil Wars by Parke Godwin? Yeah, they're a science fictional take on the whole question, and it's more about the afterlife rather than ghosts haunting a place. But it's still in the same ballpark, a giggle at times, and though provoking at other times.
 

aliwood

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More crazy answers for you:

Q: Who was Socrates?
A: Socrates was a famous old Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. He later died from an overdose of wedlock which is apparently poisonous. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.
 

_Sian_

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Morning all :)

A little bit of history going on around here today. After 123 years, they're finally having the catholic mass and funeral for Ned Kelly in town, and then re-burying him next to his mother in the greta cementary.

The family and descendants are also desperately trying to stop it from turning into a media circus. I wish them luck - I dare say having a relative like Ned Kelly made life a bit hard in the years after they hanged him.
 

eyeblink

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uses of ghosts outside of horror-

Something I read on Christmas Day - Dickens's A Christmas Carol. That's a story of healing and consolation, which are fantasy themes, not horror ones.

Have you read Waiting For the Galactic Bus and The Snake Oil Wars by Parke Godwin? Yeah, they're a science fictional take on the whole question, and it's more about the afterlife rather than ghosts haunting a place. But it's still in the same ballpark, a giggle at times, and though provoking at other times.

Parke Godwin wrote one of my favourite pieces of short fiction, his World Fantasy Award winning long novelette/short novella, "The Fire When It Comes". It made me cry.

He's in his eighties now and sadly not a well man. It was reported that he's in decline and can no longer read or write.

Morning all :)

A little bit of history going on around here today. After 123 years, they're finally having the catholic mass and funeral for Ned Kelly in town, and then re-burying him next to his mother in the greta cementary.

The family and descendants are also desperately trying to stop it from turning into a media circus. I wish them luck - I dare say having a relative like Ned Kelly made life a bit hard in the years after they hanged him.

Interesting. I went round the prison where he was hanged. (Now a museum.)
 

10trackers

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I'm going to have to freaking work from home tonight. My options, then, are either to push my 10 pm-midnight writing window back to midnight-2 am, or go without.


My reaction to things that get in the way of my momentum: :flamethrower


Also I have to go to the dentist soon. This wretched day. :mad:

Oh, Hillz. Do not, under any circumstances, think about That Story while you're in the chair. :Hug2:

Evening, y'all. I hath returned from my writing class. As I loathe most Dutch literary novels, it was interesting. I swear, after a while, the professor started to wince whenever I prepared to vent my opinion.



Also:

:Jump: :Jump: :Jump: :Jump: :Jump: :Jump: :Jump: :Jump: :Jump:
 

hillaryjacques

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Oh, Hillz. Do not, under any circumstances, think about That Story while you're in the chair. :Hug2:

My dentist is a very nice, very respectable LADY. Also, I slept quite a bit of the time so there was little thinking done.


Yay for writing class! Are they starting by discussing literature?
 

BigWords

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Have you read Waiting For the Galactic Bus and The Snake Oil Wars by Parke Godwin?

I haven't. *hides*

At the moment I am working through an ungodly number of historical documents, non-fiction books, maps and other "fun" stuff, but I am adding all these recommendations to the list once I have squeezed out the few remaining novellas. So, so close...

Something I read on Christmas Day - Dickens's A Christmas Carol. That's a story of healing and consolation, which are fantasy themes, not horror ones.

Even though I mock Dickens like nobody else (with the notable exception of James Fenimore Cooper), I do love his short stories. His novels drive me to despair though.
 

Fenika

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BW, I thought you said you met Dickens. I thought 'pull the other one then'
 

Fenika

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R u sure???

I am wondering if a PB about a little budgie getting cancer and being brave would have a market... Anyone do kids books here?
 

BigWords

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R u sure???

*checks*

Almost certain. Though from reading some of my writing, it may seem that I have been preserved from an earlier era...

I am wondering if a PB about a little budgie getting cancer and being brave would have a market... Anyone do kids books here?

Seems a fairly good idea, and I can't think of reading anything similar to Zoe. I spend a lot of time reading her stories about unhappy puppies and mischievous wildlife, so it would make a change.
 

Reservoir Angel

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I just nearly knocked my laptop off it's perch... how do you know when you're having a heart attack, exactly?
 

LadyV

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I wrote more words tonight. Almost 800. Chapter is almost done. :snoopy:

Unfortunately I've got work tomorrow so it's bed time for me. I can't wait until these 4am starts are over. March seems a long ways away.

Goodnight Cantina!
 

Shenanigans!

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I really need to get pass the boring section of my revision preparations so I can get onto the exciting part. If I continue at this rate, I'll never get anything done before getting bogged down in midterms and papers of February.
 

eyeblink

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There is an entirely empty bag of cookies next to me right now. :(

Saucy minx. :)

Good morning Cantina. Off to watch Dogs in Space before work. (That's the title of a movie, not a description of some strange perverse activity carried out in the South of England.)
 

eyeblink

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Watched the movie. Enjoyed it muchly second time round.

There's snow on the ground outside.
 
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eyeblink

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I am reading a very good book at the moment. The king of attolia. It's been ages since I enjoyed a book this much, or was this interested in the characters.

Sounds good. I've not read that one.

I'm currently reading Anthony Powell's A Question of Upbringing (am I allowed to say that in a SF/F forum?), the first of mine and a friend's mutual reading challenge to read all twelve volumes of A Dance to the Music of Time in 2013. (There's a Goodreads group for this, called Books Do Furnish a Year.) I read the first three thirty years ago, enjoyed them quite a bit, couldn't get hold of the fourth from the library so lost momentum and stopped, and I've been meaning to read them ever since. This came up in conversation and the result was this reading challenge.
 

aliwood

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Morning :Sun:

So grateful this morning that I did not move to Wales when I had the chance 10 years ago. The weather forecast looks as though it might take the place off the map. -2 and plain ordinary snow up here. I am hoping for a thaw.

My coffee is not so good this morning. We are testing a slightly cheaper brand as we need to save money. Back to the expensive stuff next week. We'll save money on something else instead.

:Coffee:
 

Fenika

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Good luck with the money saving. I will again pimp mint.com


ION, GUY GAVRIEL KAY will be a guest of honor at World Fantasy Con 2014 in Arlington VA (by DC). It's in November. Who is going cuz I already have it in my calendar. I think I'll bring all my books to sign and squee like a fan girl.

Now if they'd get Sapkowski too (new Witcher books out in English this year!)
 
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